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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23843377">Are Things Still Burning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia'>spaceOdementia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VII</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adversity, BAMF Tifa Lockhart, Character Study, Despair, Drabble, Drama, During and post Nibelheim Incident, Gen, Nibelheim Incident, Tifa learning how to become a real fighter, Tifa-centric, Zangan's Teachings, title from a song</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:49:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23843377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zangan called it chaos training. [Tifa-centric, drabble]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Are Things Still Burning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a love letter to one of my favorite characters of all time. Inspired by the scene in the remake where Barrett tells Tifa to hang onto her anger. Happy reading! Feel free to drop me a line, I love all thoughts and ideas immensely.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zangan called it chaos training.</p>
<p>All pupils go through it, he had said. It is what evolves the weak into the strong—smooth skin to calloused palms. It hardens the physical attributes, the body always questioning and adapting and learning, creating muscle confusion to start the process over again.</p>
<p>Adaptability is powerful, he had said. It takes one moment, a breath in between the seconds. It is what gives you the upper hand. It is what makes you different and what makes you better. It will be what saves you.</p>
<p>This is what she thinks about when she stares down at her father, lying lifeless on the metal grates of the floor. His blood sticks together before it drips, the dark, cruel red thick and unending.</p>
<p>Zangan taught her the rhythm of motion, combinations of movements, the precision of motor control. He taught her how to twist her body in ways that were unpredictable and patient, quick and slow and how to know when to be either. Fall into the pressure of the fight, he coached her. Land on the other side. It is not purely physical endurance. It is mental endurance. It is sweat and quaking limbs. It is ignoring exhaustion. It is purpose.</p>
<p>She stares down at the unnatural angle of her father's joints. How do you come out of the pressure unscathed?</p>
<p>She bends forward, her limbs quaking and her body fatigued. She fists her palms around the handle of the katana lying beside him. How do you fight with a heart that is crippled and wounded?</p>
<p>Adaptation. Pressure. Endurance. He taught her how to tame the physical. He never taught her emotional adversity. He taught her how to steady her stance. He never taught her how to unburden the weight in her stomach. How to hold back her tears. How to breathe through the trembling of her lungs and the constriction of her throat.</p>
<p>She walks into the corridor. Her gait is uneven and stilted.</p>
<p>How do you avenge death? How do you whittle despair into a razor?</p>
<p>How do you make your soul a weapon?</p>
<p>She pushes through the open doorway at the end of the room, and that’s where she sees him—the gleaming silver hair like thousands of sharpened knives. The black wing like a scythe cutting through the air. He is death standing there, and how do you overcome the embodiment of power? How do you kill what is already dead?</p>
<p>Everything is a needle point in her vision. He is the only thing she sees. Fall into the pressure. Land on the other side.</p>
<p>She screams, swinging the katana like it is her arm. The point is her fist. She swings with all her might, and it is an arc of desperation.</p>
<p>You don’t, she learns. You don’t kill what is already dead.</p>
<p>He overpowers her like a doll, twisting her like plastic. He takes his katana and slices through her, and she falls into the pressure, falls and falls because there is nothing to control a fall.</p>
<p>There is nothing to do but land on the other side. To adapt. <em>It will be what saves you.</em></p>
<p>And when she wakes up, she will hold onto that anger. She will remember why she felt it. She will remember what it feels like when there is nothing left.</p>
<p>Chaos training, she thinks later when she sees the branded propaganda slashed on the paper, hastily taped to the craggy brick of an alleyway. There is nothing as uncontrollable and chaotic like an avalanche. She feels the weight in her stomach like lead and packed snow. It is only fitting.</p>
<p>She rips the paper down and gazes at the sharp edges of the writing.  </p>
<p>How do you whittle despair into a razor? How do you make your soul a weapon? Easy. She folds the paper into her pocket.</p>
<p>It is ignoring exhaustion. It is purpose.</p>
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